Festivals Are The New Religion
Spring has sprung, and that means gazillions of wildflowers in Southern California, the start of America’s pastime (really, baseball?), and of course March Madness. It’s also the sprouting of festival season. I predict a record season, because in these maddening and precarious times, with uncertainty about the very future of our planet, festivals provide a way to connect with what’s nourishing, meaningful, and ultimately uplifting.
I’m not talking about the traditional festivals of food, wine, carney, merch and livestock. I’m referring to the transformational festivals that are lighting up the planet and shifting consciousness. Particularly in the west, where the confluence of consciousness, technology, creativity, and above all nature has made the perfect canvas for this ancient rite of spiritual and social renewal. Magic making experiences of exalted love and celebration, like Beloved, Envision, Symbiosis, Enchanted Forest, Lucidity, Wander Lust, Lightning in a Bottle, Bhakti, Shakti, Sat Nam Fest, and the granddaddy of them all, Burning Man. Where people can express themselves in a safe, supportive environment, free of judgment, fostering the next generation of conscious beings who will very likely save the planet by returning us to a more grounded, compassionate, non-material existence.
A couple of years ago I was at a hot spring in Northern California and met a community of young people who were just beginning their festival circuit. They either took seasonal jobs in the winter to save enough to be festival gypsies, or had a skill or product to offer and made a living in the festival ecosystem. They have rejected the mainstream paradigm of materialism and corporate America and are instead living lives I found refreshingly free of financial burden or stasis.
These festivals become actual communities for a fleeting moment in time. The campgrounds are the neighborhoods. The food trucks the restaurant district. And the entertainment zones are the stages and gathering places for experiential workshops, live music and dancing. Only commerce and trade are replaced by glorious displays of human dexterity in the arts, ecstatic dancing, live painters, arresting costumes, beautiful lighting, and the propulsive beat of electronic music. It’s a content-rich reality with a density of quality human interactions.
Of course there are other festivals too, primarily devoted to music, like the smaller Live Oak, Joshua Tree, Reggae on the River, Bottle Rocket, High Sierra festivals, and closer to home the Doheny Blues and Ohana Fests. Plus the bigger Outside Lands, Stage Coach, and gargantuan Coachella.
But look closer at the transformational festivals and you will see rituals at once ancient and now perhaps the future. Where people return to the land, engage in mindful practices like meditation and yoga, attend workshops where one might learn about the environmental healing properties of mushrooms from mycologist Paul Samets, or Indo-Tibetan Buddhism from Robert Thurman, or visionary art from Alex Grey, or sway in ecstatic call and response with Kirtan artist Krishna Das.
The glue that holds most of these festivals together is the ancient ritual of music and dance. In the 13th century the church outlawed this pagan practice, but it is deeply embedded in our DNA as the most ancient of tribal rituals to celebrate the earth, her bounty, and the human experience – the very roots of religion itself.
If you are feeling called to go deep into yoga and transformation, some of the best festivals are just around the corner. April begins with the Sat Nam Fest, a kundalini yoga and music festival in Joshua Tree from April 5-9. Lucidity in Santa Barbara is the same weekend, where, according to their website “people achieve such trancelike states that many leave feeling their lives have been changed, or at least shifted, usually for the better.” And then there’s the wonderful Shakti Fest in Joshua Tree May 11-13, an awe inspiring yoga and devotional music festival. These are the antithesis of Burning Man, gentle, drug-free affairs that stress being healthy, mindful, and in gratitude.
One other aspect to these festivals is that many go all night. And that offers a wonderful freedom, because in our over-regulated default lives here in California, we are somehow restricted to a 1:30 last call at bars and clubs. It’s an antiquated law from 1935, and it is now seen as one of the reasons why so many died in the Oakland Ghost Ship fire. Young people who want to party after 2 a.m. have to go underground. That may change soon with a new state bill called LOCAL, the Let Our Communities Adjust Late Night Act, a bill that would allow municipalities to permit alcohol sales until 4 a.m. in some cases.
Now I know this has about as much of a chance passing in Laguna as pigs flying or chickens growing lips. But state Senator Scott Weiner (D-San Francisco, of course) believes it is actually in the interest of public safety because, “the reality of life is that you need to meet people where they are.”
It’s the same reason we need to lower the drinking age to 18, so we can treat young adults with respect and empower them to behave responsibly, instead of driving everything underground and forcing them to react in irresponsible and extreme ways. But I won’t hold my breath. And until then, there’s still the all night revelry of Burning Man. Tickets went on sale Wednesday.
Billy Fried hosts “Laguna Talks” Thursday at 8 p.m. on KX 93.5, and can be reached at billy@lavidalaguna.com.
Before you start heading for the trees.. you actually sound like you are half way ahead of others,. remember that laws and being respectful of all of them is historically a necessity where large groups of people gather .
Individuals apart from or smaller groups need less direction and moral guidance. Money for extended operations of establishments has to be budgeted and weighed against profit. This is where a business accreditation and knowledge would befriend your motivation.